“Finding Rocky”
You’ve only got two more days to do it, but if you’re reading this in Nice, France, and would like to see paintings by the muscular star of Rhinestone, Over the Top, and Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot, then hurry on over to the Galerie Contemporaine du Musée de Nice, which is currently mounting an exhibition of Stallone’s work called “Real Love: Paintings 1975-2015.” The show has been on since May 15 and ends May 30.
Look, I think Stallone gets a bad rap for being a dumb guy, he’s clearly a formidable fellow and more intelligent than it might at first appear. One of the things he’s gotten flak for in Hollywood is his apparent need to mess with the scripts of his movies (check out his voluminous screenwriting credits). That may make him an egomaniac or worse, but the criticism that he wants to write all of his movies isn’t consistent with his occasional depiction as an idiot.
I’m no art critic and I have little way of differentiating good art from bad. But… let’s see—subjects including boxing gloves, Rocky, Joan Crawford, some of it in a loosely abstract expressionist style and other parts vaguely conceptual (one of his paintings, “Backlash,” is half-painting, half-mirror).... I submit that if I told you that Stallone was a painter, this is exactly the type of stuff you’d expect out of him. He’s no better or no worse than Ronnie Wood, which is not necessarily a compliment.
“Behind the Mind”
“The Arena”
“Untitled (Michael Jackson)”
“Death of a Friend”
“Champion Due”
“Woman (Joan Crawford) 40x40”
“Family Ties”
“Boxing Gloves 1991”
“Superman”
“Angel Skin”
Here’s a 43-minute video on Stallone and his art from Galerie Gmurzynska, which had an exhibition of Stallone’s paintings in its St. Moritz branch in 2011: